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The fragmented approach St. Louis city and county officials have taken with tax increment financing over the last two decades has led to a greater St. Louis-area municipalities that compete against one another.

That’s all according to a report published in mid-May by Better Together St. Louis, an organization that hopes to better communicate how businesses are impacted by local government and its structure.

During the last 20 years, more than $2 billion of public tax dollars have been diverted to developers as subsidies for private development, the report said. Cities that dole out that money are creating more tax revenue and jobs for that particular municipality. But at the same time, it’s taking away from the growth in neighboring municipalities.

To prosper as a region, and compete on a global scale, local lawmakers should take a more regional mindset when considering TIF districts, said Dave Leipholtz, who co-authored the study.

Better Together officials stressed that not all TIFs are bad. Nancy Rice, the Better Together’s executive director, pointed to TIF projects such as Cortex and Pagedale as local success stories.

But, the “widespread use of tax increment financing for retail development and the benefit of individual municipalities is not the recipe for regional economic growth,” the report said.

The study, which is available online, also pointed to creating goals that ensure a diversified workforce that represents the demographics of St. Louis city and county; and streamlining the process by which businesses startup as key areas the region could work together to make the region compete on a global stage.